My Dinner With Andreessen
=========================
Billionaires I have known: Part One of a three-part series

by Rick Perlstein
April 24, 2024

Marc Andreessen and Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen arrive at the tenth
Breakthrough Prize Ceremony on April 13, 2024, at the Academy Museum
of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles.

Recently, I read about venture capitalist Marc Andreessen putting his
12,000-square-foot mansion in Atherton, California, which has seven
fireplaces, up for sale for $33.75 million. This was done to spend
more time, one supposes, at the $177 million home he owns in Paradise
Cove, California; or the $34 million one he bought beside it; or the
$44.5 million one in a place called Escondido Beach. Upon reading
this, I realized it was time to stop procrastinating and tell you all
a story I've been meaning to set down for a long time now about the
time I visited that house (the cheap $33.75 million one, I mean).
Strictly on a need-to-know basis. Because you really need to know how
deeply twisted some of these plutocrats who run our society truly are.

<https://www.businessinsider.com/see-inside-investor-marc-andreessens-
33-million-house-for-sale-2024-3>

<https://traded.co/deals/california/single-family-residence/sale/
27724-pacific-coast-highway/>

It was 2017, and a YIMBY activist invited me to talk about my book
Nixonland with his book club, which also happened to be Marc
Andreessen's book club. They offered a free flight and hotel; I
accepted. We met in that house. I was vaguely aware of Andreessen as
the guy who invented the first web browser, a socially useful
accomplishment by any measure and a story I had long kept in the back
of my mind as an outstanding proof text that useful invention often
flourishes best when government subsidizes it, socialism-style--given
that Andreessen had created it while a student at a public
institution, the University of Illinois. Then I boned up on what he
was up to now, courtesy of a gargantuan 13,000-word profile from two
years earlier in The New Yorker.

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netscape_Navigator>

<https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/05/18/tomorrows-advance-man>

Andreessen, I learned, was "Tomorrow's Advance Man." He superintended
the "newest and most unusual" venture capital firm on Menlo Park's
Sand Hill Road. He "seethes with beliefs" and is "afire to reorder
life as we know it." His enthusiasms included replacing money with
cryptocurrency; replacing cooked food with a scheme called, yes,
"Soylent," and boosting the now-invisible Oculus virtual reality
headset.

Zero for three when it comes to picking useful inventions to reorder
life as we know it, that is to say, though at no apparent cost to his
power or net worth, now pegged at an estimated $1.7 billion. Along
the way, I also learned he was a major stockholder in Facebook and a
member of the civilian board that helped oversee the Central
Intelligence Agency. Much later, it was in a tweet of his that I
first saw the phrase "woke mind virus." (He's not a fan.)

Last year, a manifesto he published on the website of his VC firm
Andreessen Horowitz got a good deal of attention. It includes lines
like "Technology is the glory of human ambition and achievement, the
spearhead of progress, and the realization of our potential." (The
residents of Nagasaki and Hiroshima might once have wished to
disagree.) "For hundreds of years, we properly glorified this--until
recently." (Really? I only wish I could escape the glorification for
one goddamned day.) "We believe everything good is downstream of
growth." (Everything?) And "there is no material problem--whether
created by nature or by technology--that cannot be solved with more
technology."

<https://a16z.com/the-techno-optimist-manifesto/>

The big idea: "Our enemy is the Precautionary Principle." Normal
people define that as the imperative of seeking to prevent and
contain certain potentially civilization-ending potentialities like
nuclear holocaust and pandemic. Andreessen, conversely, calls
precaution "perhaps the most catastrophic mistake in Western society
in my lifetime ... deeply immoral, and we must jettison it with
extreme prejudice."

What ought be embraced in its stead, naturally, is markets, because
"they divert people who otherwise would raise armies and start
religions into peacefully productive pursuits." (The opening of
markets, as all students know, having everywhere and always been the
most peaceful pursuit known to humanity.)

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Victorian_Holocausts>

<https://asiapacificcurriculum.ca/learning-module/opium-wars-china>

What stands in the way of the recognition of this so self-evident
truth? Ideas like "sustainability," "stakeholder capitalism," "social
responsibility," "tech ethics," "trust and safety," and "risk
management," which must be eliminated--"with extreme prejudice."
According to the logic of the piece, I suppose, this must happen in
order to nip in the bud the armies we can expect the avatars of
ethics and responsibility to raise any day now.

Basically, the manifesto is an argument, dressed up in the raiment of
morality, about power: Andreessen and people like him should get to
make decisions to reorder life as we know it without interference
from anyone else. Which will be quite relevant to know for the saga
ahead, once you see the style of moral judgment this most powerful of
human actors displays behind closed doors.

IT WAS A NICE NORTHERN CALIFORNIA DAY. I saw from the map that a
rideshare trip from San Francisco to Atherton would be a good bit
cheaper if I embarked from a freeway entrance a mile or so from where
I was. I set off on one of those glorious walks that remind you why
you can't help loving cities, in all their unplanned and unplannable
charm. I strolled across one of the remaining shabby parts of San
Francisco, untouched by the gentrifiers, and my stops included a
glorious junk shop stuffed stem to stern with ghosts of San Francisco
past, including a pile of wooden chairs tangled from floor to ceiling
like they came from some ancient Gold Rush; and a street corner where
a clutch of elderly Black men were singing doo-wop.

I arrived at my destination in a good mood, electric with a writer's
observant curiosity. The first detail I noted in Atherton was the
gate where I was dropped off; it informed me that an armed guard was
on duty 24 hours a day. The second was the hulking object standing by
the front door: a sculpture by the French modernist master Jean
Dubuffet (1901–1985), a smaller version of a massive, beloved
downtown public monument Chicagoans call "Snoopy in a Blender."

<https://blockclubchicago.org/2023/07/25/snoopy-in-a-blender-
sculpture-moving-from-thompson-center-to-art-institute>

That certainly made an impression: not the sort of thing one usually
finds on front lawns.

I rang the bell; an Asian man in khakis and a sweater answered. I
snapped into guest mode, introducing myself enthusiastically. He
responded with an odd coldness. Then I realized he was not a fellow
guest but, I guess you'd say, the butler. A hundred years ago, he
might have been referred to as "houseboy" and greeted me in a tux.

I met Andreessen's wife. Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen is the daughter
of a sharp fellow who began scooping up commercial real estate in the
bedraggled lands around Stanford University that became Silicon
Valley, becoming its pre-eminent landowner, which is kind of how
aristocracies start in the dim mists of time. I reflected, perhaps
unfairly, that marrying off their daughters to young men of talent
and fortune is often how such families institutionalize their power.

She showed me around her art collection. I tried not to gawk, and
failed. "That's an Agnes Martin! ... A Claes Oldenburg maquette! He's
one of my favorites!" And so on. I later learned that
Arrillaga-Andreessen made a project of classing up the "cultural
desert" of Silicon Valley--the "pop-up gallery" she organized with a
Manhattan powerhouse art dealer at her father's Tesla dealership was
covered in the art press as something like a philanthropic venture.
But progress was apparently sluggish; Arrillaga-Andreessen seemed
absurdly grateful to finally have a guest who knew who these artists
were. Quietly, I reflected upon how odd it is that people who claim
to love art, and sharing it with the world, would lock masterpieces
away for only themselves and their guests to enjoy. Among
aristocrats, I suppose, it has ever been thus.

<https://www.google.com/search?q=%22pace+gallery%22
+tesla+Arrillaga-Andreessen>

There were also lots of books on many subjects, piled up in
skyscraper-like stacks. Andreessen, you see, is an intellectual. That
was why I was there.

Andreessen wasn't, yet. I waited at the dining room table. A chef in
starched whites (was there a toque?) served me something delicious.
Then arrived in the room a "cranium so large, bald, and oblong that
you can't help but think of words like ‘jumbo' and ‘Grade A'" (The
New Yorker's words, not mine); and, one by one, his guests. My first
impression of them came of their response to my small-talk
description of my delightful afternoon. Jaws practically dropped,
like I had dared an unaccompanied, unarmed stroll through Baghdad's
Sadr City in the spring of 2004.

On Mon, 1 Jul 2024 13:18:10 -0000 (UTC), Ben Collver
<bencollver@tilde.pink> wrote:

> My Dinner With Andreessen
> =========================
> Billionaires I have known: Part One of a three-part series
>
> by Rick Perlstein
> April 24, 2024

Thank you for bringing this to our attention Ben.
Really disgusting.
So disgusting that "Plutocrat" is a kind description.
--
Kees

Anyone surprised? My theory is that you don't become a billionaire by
being cute and cuddly.

On Mon, 1 Jul 2024, Ben Collver wrote:

> My Dinner With Andreessen
> =========================
> Billionaires I have known: Part One of a three-part series
>
> by Rick Perlstein
> April 24, 2024
>
> Marc Andreessen and Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen arrive at the tenth
> Breakthrough Prize Ceremony on April 13, 2024, at the Academy Museum
> of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles.
>
> Recently, I read about venture capitalist Marc Andreessen putting his
> 12,000-square-foot mansion in Atherton, California, which has seven
> fireplaces, up for sale for $33.75 million. This was done to spend
> more time, one supposes, at the $177 million home he owns in Paradise
> Cove, California; or the $34 million one he bought beside it; or the
> $44.5 million one in a place called Escondido Beach. Upon reading
> this, I realized it was time to stop procrastinating and tell you all
> a story I've been meaning to set down for a long time now about the
> time I visited that house (the cheap $33.75 million one, I mean).
> Strictly on a need-to-know basis. Because you really need to know how
> deeply twisted some of these plutocrats who run our society truly are.
>
> <https://www.businessinsider.com/see-inside-investor-marc-andreessens-
> 33-million-house-for-sale-2024-3>
>
> <https://traded.co/deals/california/single-family-residence/sale/
> 27724-pacific-coast-highway/>
>
> It was 2017, and a YIMBY activist invited me to talk about my book
> Nixonland with his book club, which also happened to be Marc
> Andreessen's book club. They offered a free flight and hotel; I
> accepted. We met in that house. I was vaguely aware of Andreessen as
> the guy who invented the first web browser, a socially useful
> accomplishment by any measure and a story I had long kept in the back
> of my mind as an outstanding proof text that useful invention often
> flourishes best when government subsidizes it, socialism-style--given
> that Andreessen had created it while a student at a public
> institution, the University of Illinois. Then I boned up on what he
> was up to now, courtesy of a gargantuan 13,000-word profile from two
> years earlier in The New Yorker.
>
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netscape_Navigator>
>
> <https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/05/18/tomorrows-advance-man>
>
> Andreessen, I learned, was "Tomorrow's Advance Man." He superintended
> the "newest and most unusual" venture capital firm on Menlo Park's
> Sand Hill Road. He "seethes with beliefs" and is "afire to reorder
> life as we know it." His enthusiasms included replacing money with
> cryptocurrency; replacing cooked food with a scheme called, yes,
> "Soylent," and boosting the now-invisible Oculus virtual reality
> headset.
>
> Zero for three when it comes to picking useful inventions to reorder
> life as we know it, that is to say, though at no apparent cost to his
> power or net worth, now pegged at an estimated $1.7 billion. Along
> the way, I also learned he was a major stockholder in Facebook and a
> member of the civilian board that helped oversee the Central
> Intelligence Agency. Much later, it was in a tweet of his that I
> first saw the phrase "woke mind virus." (He's not a fan.)
>
> Last year, a manifesto he published on the website of his VC firm
> Andreessen Horowitz got a good deal of attention. It includes lines
> like "Technology is the glory of human ambition and achievement, the
> spearhead of progress, and the realization of our potential." (The
> residents of Nagasaki and Hiroshima might once have wished to
> disagree.) "For hundreds of years, we properly glorified this--until
> recently." (Really? I only wish I could escape the glorification for
> one goddamned day.) "We believe everything good is downstream of
> growth." (Everything?) And "there is no material problem--whether
> created by nature or by technology--that cannot be solved with more
> technology."
>
> <https://a16z.com/the-techno-optimist-manifesto/>
>
> The big idea: "Our enemy is the Precautionary Principle." Normal
> people define that as the imperative of seeking to prevent and
> contain certain potentially civilization-ending potentialities like
> nuclear holocaust and pandemic. Andreessen, conversely, calls
> precaution "perhaps the most catastrophic mistake in Western society
> in my lifetime ... deeply immoral, and we must jettison it with
> extreme prejudice."
>
> What ought be embraced in its stead, naturally, is markets, because
> "they divert people who otherwise would raise armies and start
> religions into peacefully productive pursuits." (The opening of
> markets, as all students know, having everywhere and always been the
> most peaceful pursuit known to humanity.)
>
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Victorian_Holocausts>
>
> <https://asiapacificcurriculum.ca/learning-module/opium-wars-china>
>
> What stands in the way of the recognition of this so self-evident
> truth? Ideas like "sustainability," "stakeholder capitalism," "social
> responsibility," "tech ethics," "trust and safety," and "risk
> management," which must be eliminated--"with extreme prejudice."
> According to the logic of the piece, I suppose, this must happen in
> order to nip in the bud the armies we can expect the avatars of
> ethics and responsibility to raise any day now.
>
> Basically, the manifesto is an argument, dressed up in the raiment of
> morality, about power: Andreessen and people like him should get to
> make decisions to reorder life as we know it without interference
> from anyone else. Which will be quite relevant to know for the saga
> ahead, once you see the style of moral judgment this most powerful of
> human actors displays behind closed doors.
>
> IT WAS A NICE NORTHERN CALIFORNIA DAY. I saw from the map that a
> rideshare trip from San Francisco to Atherton would be a good bit
> cheaper if I embarked from a freeway entrance a mile or so from where
> I was. I set off on one of those glorious walks that remind you why
> you can't help loving cities, in all their unplanned and unplannable
> charm. I strolled across one of the remaining shabby parts of San
> Francisco, untouched by the gentrifiers, and my stops included a
> glorious junk shop stuffed stem to stern with ghosts of San Francisco
> past, including a pile of wooden chairs tangled from floor to ceiling
> like they came from some ancient Gold Rush; and a street corner where
> a clutch of elderly Black men were singing doo-wop.
>
> I arrived at my destination in a good mood, electric with a writer's
> observant curiosity. The first detail I noted in Atherton was the
> gate where I was dropped off; it informed me that an armed guard was
> on duty 24 hours a day. The second was the hulking object standing by
> the front door: a sculpture by the French modernist master Jean
> Dubuffet (1901–1985), a smaller version of a massive, beloved
> downtown public monument Chicagoans call "Snoopy in a Blender."
>
> <https://blockclubchicago.org/2023/07/25/snoopy-in-a-blender-
> sculpture-moving-from-thompson-center-to-art-institute>
>
> That certainly made an impression: not the sort of thing one usually
> finds on front lawns.
>
> I rang the bell; an Asian man in khakis and a sweater answered. I
> snapped into guest mode, introducing myself enthusiastically. He
> responded with an odd coldness. Then I realized he was not a fellow
> guest but, I guess you'd say, the butler. A hundred years ago, he
> might have been referred to as "houseboy" and greeted me in a tux.
>
> I met Andreessen's wife. Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen is the daughter
> of a sharp fellow who began scooping up commercial real estate in the
> bedraggled lands around Stanford University that became Silicon
> Valley, becoming its pre-eminent landowner, which is kind of how
> aristocracies start in the dim mists of time. I reflected, perhaps
> unfairly, that marrying off their daughters to young men of talent
> and fortune is often how such families institutionalize their power.
>
> She showed me around her art collection. I tried not to gawk, and
> failed. "That's an Agnes Martin! ... A Claes Oldenburg maquette! He's
> one of my favorites!" And so on. I later learned that
> Arrillaga-Andreessen made a project of classing up the "cultural
> desert" of Silicon Valley--the "pop-up gallery" she organized with a
> Manhattan powerhouse art dealer at her father's Tesla dealership was
> covered in the art press as something like a philanthropic venture.
> But progress was apparently sluggish; Arrillaga-Andreessen seemed
> absurdly grateful to finally have a guest who knew who these artists
> were. Quietly, I reflected upon how odd it is that people who claim
> to love art, and sharing it with the world, would lock masterpieces
> away for only themselves and their guests to enjoy. Among
> aristocrats, I suppose, it has ever been thus.
>
> <https://www.google.com/search?q=%22pace+gallery%22
> +tesla+Arrillaga-Andreessen>
>
> There were also lots of books on many subjects, piled up in
> skyscraper-like stacks. Andreessen, you see, is an intellectual. That
> was why I was there.
>
> Andreessen wasn't, yet. I waited at the dining room table. A chef in
> starched whites (was there a toque?) served me something delicious.
> Then arrived in the room a "cranium so large, bald, and oblong that
> you can't help but think of words like ‘jumbo' and ‘Grade A'" (The
> New Yorker's words, not mine); and, one by one, his guests. My first
> impression of them came of their response to my small-talk
> description of my delightful afternoon. Jaws practically dropped,
> like I had dared an unaccompanied, unarmed stroll through Baghdad's
> Sadr City in the spring of 2004.
>
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Sadr_City>
>
> I had been told, via email, a little about the people I would meet:
> mostly fellow investment magnates, but also an extra person added at
> the last minute. She was a woman researching life extension,
> something that, at the time, the world was just learning was a Valley
> plutocrat obsession. A woman, it was subtly emphasized. The times
> we're living in: you know.
>
> I can be slow, but I got it. Uber CEO Travis Kalanick was enmeshed in
> a scandal over endemic sexism, and it had suddenly seemed imperative
> to de-bro-ify the local culture a bit. Thus, this late-breaking
> ringer. She was young, very pretty, and seemed to have practically no
> spoken English.
>
> <https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-reckless-rise-and-fall-of-
> ubers-ceo-travis-kalanick-sml9p3q2k>
>
> The chef served us a lovely meal. I couldn't help but notice that he
> was treated rather like a pizza delivery guy.
>
> I see from a follow-up email that among the things discussed were
> David Hackett Fischer's Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in
> America, on the geographic patterns of American political culture and
> their persistence; the anti-Enlightenment philosopher Julius Evola (I
> had just begun exploring the explicit anti-liberalism of those close
> to Trump, like Steve Bannon); 1970s New Left historiography on
> regulatory capture; Corey Robin's The Reactionary Mind; Jimmy
> Carter's embrace of austerity; the magnificent volume Strange Rebels:
> 1979 and the Birth of the 21st Century (I was hard at work then on my
> book about the 1976–1980 period); and Jonathan Haidt on personality
> type and ideology (someone else must have brought him up; I can't
> stand him). I don't remember much of the discussion at all. But
> certain telling sociological details will always stick with me. My
> close friends have frequently heard me tell the tale.
>
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albion%27s_Seed>
>
> <https://www.amazon.com/Strange-Rebels-1979-Birth-Century-ebook/
> dp/B00H6UMGVI>
>
> ONE PARTICIPANT WAS A BRITISH FORMER JOURNALIST become computer
> tycoon who had been awarded a lordship. He proclaimed that the
> Chinese middle class doesn't care about democracy or civil liberties.
> I was treated as a sentimental naïf for questioning his blanket
> confidence.
>
> Another attendee seemed to see politics as a collection of
> engineering problems. He kept setting up strange thought experiments,
> which I did not understand. I recall thinking it was like talking to
> a creature visiting from another solar system that did not have
> humans in it. I later conveyed my recollection of this guy to an
> acquaintance who once taught history at Stanford. He noted a
> similarity to a student of his who insisted that all the age-old
> problems historians worried over would soon obviously be solved by
> better computers, and thus considered the entire humanistic
> enterprise faintly ridiculous.
>
> I also remember I raised an objection to Silicon Valley's fetish for
> "disruption" as the highest human value, noting that healthy
> societies also recognize the value of preserving core values and
> institutions, and feeling gaslit in return when the group came back
> heatedly that, no, Silicon Valley didn't fetishize disruption at all.
>
> The subject of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) came up. They rose up in
> thunderous hatred at her for blocking potential "innovation in the
> banking sector." (She'll make a similar cameo in Part Two of this
> series.) I suffered an epic case of l'esprit d'escalier at that.
>
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27esprit_de_l%27escalier>
>
> I thought it was pretty much universally understood by then that the
> fetish for "innovation in the banking sector" was what collapsed the
> world economy in 2008. Had I not been stunned into silence, I could
> have quoted Paul Volcker that the last useful innovation in banking
> was the automatic teller machine, and pointed out that it was only by
> strangling "innovation in the banking sector" that (as Elizabeth
> Warren always points out) the New Deal ushered in the longest period
> of financial stability in American history, and the golden age of
> global capitalism to boot. It was only when deregulation broke down
> banking's vaunted "3-6-3" rule (take deposits at 3 percent, lend them
> at 6 percent, and be on the golf course by 3 o'clock in the
> afternoon) that financial collapses returned as a regular feature of
> our lives. Silicon Valley, alas, would never learn.
>
> <https://nypost.com/2009/12/13/the-only-thing-useful-banks-have-
> invented-in-20-years-is-the-atm/>
>
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Valley_Bank#Collapse>
>
> Anyhoo.
>
> The evening progressed. The man with or without the toque cleared the
> plates. This is when, as I've learned at hyper-elite confabs I've
> attended, things tend to get down to brass tacks. Come with me, then,
> inside that $33 million manse and hear what this extraordinarily
> powerful individual who helped oversee the CIA and one of the most
> powerful instruments of communication in human history (Facebook,
> whose decisions the previous year had helped make Donald Trump
> president) said when the subject turned to rural America. It was like
> the first scene in an episode of Black Mirror.
>
> I KNEW FROM THE NEW YORKER THAT ANDREESSEN had grown up in an
> impoverished agricultural small town in Wisconsin, and despised it.
> But I certainly was not prepared for his vituperation on the subject.
> He made it clear that people who chose not to leave such places
> deserved whatever impoverishment, cultural and political neglect, and
> alienation they suffered.
>
> It's a libertarian commonplace, a version of their pinched vision of
> why the market and only the market is the truly legitimate response
> to oppressive conditions on the job: If you don't like it, you can
> leave. If you don't, what you suffer is your own fault.
>
> I brought up the ordinary comforts of kinship, friendship, craft,
> memory, legend, lore, skills passed down across generations, and
> other benefits that small towns provide: things that make human
> beings human beings. I pointed out that there must be something in
> the kind of places he grew up in worth preserving. I dared venture
> that it is always worth mourning when a venerable human community
> passes from the Earth; that maybe people are more than just figures
> finding their proper price on the balance sheet of life ...
>
> And that's when the man in the castle with the seven fireplaces said
> it.
>
> "I'm glad there's OxyContin and video games to keep those people
> quiet."
>
> I'm taking the liberty of putting it in quotation marks, though I
> can't be sure those were his exact words. Marc, if you're reading,
> feel free to get in touch and refresh my memory. Maybe he said
> "quiescent," or "docile," or maybe "powerless." Something, certainly,
> along those lines.
>
> He was joking, sort of; but he was serious--definitely. "Kidding on
> the square," jokes like those are called. All that talk about human
> potential and morality, and this man afire to reorder life as we know
> it jokingly welcomes chemical enslavement of those he grew up with,
> for the sin of not being as clever and ambitious as he.
>
> There is something very, very wrong with us, that our society affords
> so much power to people like this.
>
> From: <https://prospect.org/power/2024-04-24-my-dinner-with-andreessen/>
>

On Mon, 1 Jul 2024 13:18:10 -0000 (UTC), Ben Collver wrote:

> I was vaguely aware of Andreessen as the
> guy who invented the first web browser, a socially useful accomplishment
> by any measure and a story I had long kept in the back of my mind as an
> outstanding proof text that useful invention often flourishes best when
> government subsidizes it, socialism-style--given that Andreessen had
> created it while a student at a public institution, the University of
> Illinois.

And what was this “web” thing that he was “browsing”? That was invented at
CERN, also a government-funded research institution--in fact, an
international one, dominated by countries that the US would consider
“socialist”. They had their own browser, before Andreessen. He had his
chicken but no egg, while CERN had both chicken and egg. That’s why it was
able to spark off the popularity of this world-wide web. Then the
Americans were able to move in and do what they do best, copy other
people’s ideas, only on a larger scale.

On 2024-07-01, D <nospam@example.net> wrote:
> Anyone surprised? My theory is that you don't become a billionaire by
> being cute and cuddly.

"... you're a Lebowski, I'm a Lebowski, that's terrific."

Ben Collver wrote:
> My Dinner With Andreessen
> =========================
> Billionaires I have known: Part One of a three-part series
>
> by Rick Perlstein
> April 24, 2024

Rick Perlstein needs to STFU, as he's a left-wing kike.

That said, Andreessen needs to become an advocate of Throne, Altar and
Freehold.

Markets are all well and good, but you need something to defend them,
such as a solid religion that fighting men can march under. I propose
old-style Christianity.

On Thu, 4 Jul 2024, Anonymous wrote:

> Ben Collver wrote:
>> My Dinner With Andreessen
>> =========================
>> Billionaires I have known: Part One of a three-part series
>>
>> by Rick Perlstein
>> April 24, 2024
>
> Rick Perlstein needs to STFU, as he's a left-wing kike.

I think his left-wing "kikeness" comes through pretty clearly in the
article.

> That said, Andreessen needs to become an advocate of Throne, Altar and
> Freehold.
>
> Markets are all well and good, but you need something to defend them,
> such as a solid religion that fighting men can march under. I propose
> old-style Christianity.

I find it tragic that something like that should be necessary for people
to lift a finger when it comes to protecting markets. For anyone rational,
it is pretty clear that markets are the big blessing of this planet and
the reason we are all living at the quality of life we are. Without them,
we would be back to the middle ages or worse, like in soviet russia.

On Thu, 4 Jul 2024 00:15:03 -0400, Anonymous wrote:

> Rick Perlstein needs to STFU, as he's a left-wing kike.

Where are the righteous right-wingers who can contribute to Free software
as well as expound opinions on it? There don’t seem to be any.

On Thu, 4 Jul 2024 12:42:22 +0200, D wrote:

> I find it tragic that something like that should be necessary for people
> to lift a finger when it comes to protecting markets.

Almost as though free markets cannot remain free without regulators to
keep them free.

On Do 04 Jul 2024 at 23:49, Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:

> On Thu, 4 Jul 2024 12:42:22 +0200, D wrote:
>
>> I find it tragic that something like that should be necessary for people
>> to lift a finger when it comes to protecting markets.
>
> Almost as though free markets cannot remain free without regulators to
> keep them free.

Free markets ten ro become oligopols, if not regulated.
That is not gard to priive under some mild conditions.
Go read about it, if zou can understand the math behind that.

'Andreas

--
ceterum censeo redmondinem esse delendam

On Thu, 4 Jul 2024, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:

> On Thu, 4 Jul 2024 12:42:22 +0200, D wrote:
>
>> I find it tragic that something like that should be necessary for people
>> to lift a finger when it comes to protecting markets.
>
> Almost as though free markets cannot remain free without regulators to
> keep them free.
>

Of course they can. You're wrong per definition, but thank you for the
attempt. ;)

On Thu, 4 Jul 2024, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:

> On Thu, 4 Jul 2024 00:15:03 -0400, Anonymous wrote:
>
>> Rick Perlstein needs to STFU, as he's a left-wing kike.
>
> Where are the righteous right-wingers who can contribute to Free software
> as well as expound opinions on it? There don’t seem to be any.
>

They exist, but generally they take two paths to nirvana. Either they are
outspoken and are shunned and net-hated by the radical left. There are a
few like Luke Smith for instance. Or they work away suffering in silence.
I know many of the second type and benefit greatly due to offering an
environment in my own company that bans politics (except perhaps a poke or
two at the radical left) which gives them peace of mind to perform
miracles.

On Fri, 5 Jul 2024, Andreas Eder wrote:

> On Do 04 Jul 2024 at 23:49, Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
>
>> On Thu, 4 Jul 2024 12:42:22 +0200, D wrote:
>>
>>> I find it tragic that something like that should be necessary for people
>>> to lift a finger when it comes to protecting markets.
>>
>> Almost as though free markets cannot remain free without regulators to
>> keep them free.
>
> Free markets ten ro become oligopols, if not regulated.
> That is not gard to priive under some mild conditions.
> Go read about it, if zou can understand the math behind that.
>
> 'Andreas

Nope, actually governments tend to create oligopolies due to being such
big actors on the market that work according to politics and not according
to profit motive. FANG profit handsomely by government protection.

So yes, if you take a quick look your statement might look true, but if
you investigate the revenue streams of the global giants that are (or have
been) in some sense oligopolies, you'll see that they have received plenty
help from the government in terms of eitehr government contracts, or
regulations which protect them.

In my country, technically I could easily start a bank, but governments
protect them, and there you go. You have a few giants and that's it.

I recommend Johan Norbergs The Capitalist Manifesto if you want to learn
the truth about capitalism. A good second source is mises.org.

D <nospam@example.net> wrote:
>On Fri, 5 Jul 2024, Andreas Eder wrote:
>> On Do 04 Jul 2024 at 23:49, Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
>>> On Thu, 4 Jul 2024 12:42:22 +0200, D wrote:
>>>
>>>> I find it tragic that something like that should be necessary for people
>>>> to lift a finger when it comes to protecting markets.
>>>
>>> Almost as though free markets cannot remain free without regulators to
>>> keep them free.
>>
>> Free markets ten ro become oligopols, if not regulated.
>> That is not gard to priive under some mild conditions.
>> Go read about it, if zou can understand the math behind that.
>
>Nope, actually governments tend to create oligopolies due to being such
>big actors on the market that work according to politics and not according
>to profit motive. FANG profit handsomely by government protection.

Both of these statements are true and they are in no way contradictory.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

On Fri, 5 Jul 2024, Scott Dorsey wrote:

> D <nospam@example.net> wrote:
>> On Fri, 5 Jul 2024, Andreas Eder wrote:
>>> On Do 04 Jul 2024 at 23:49, Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
>>>> On Thu, 4 Jul 2024 12:42:22 +0200, D wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I find it tragic that something like that should be necessary for people
>>>>> to lift a finger when it comes to protecting markets.
>>>>
>>>> Almost as though free markets cannot remain free without regulators to
>>>> keep them free.
>>>
>>> Free markets ten ro become oligopols, if not regulated.
>>> That is not gard to priive under some mild conditions.
>>> Go read about it, if zou can understand the math behind that.
>>
>> Nope, actually governments tend to create oligopolies due to being such
>> big actors on the market that work according to politics and not according
>> to profit motive. FANG profit handsomely by government protection.
>
> Both of these statements are true and they are in no way contradictory.
> --scott
>
>

Nope, they are contradictory. The act of regulation decreases freedom,
hence increases oligopoly/monopoly. It is of course a spectrum and not
binary, but the more regulation, the more monopoly and the end station is
socialism where the government is the monopoly with all the power, and the
citizens being slaves.

Only less regulation and more free markets can counter that. Johan
Norbergs book, The capitalist manifesto also proves conclusively that less
regulation and more freedom is the only thing that leads to increase
quality of life.

Of course, if by quality of life you mean that all power should belong to
an authoritarian leader and politicians, then that holds little persuasive
powers, but then the potential you and me have such a fundamental
difference in values and ways of looking at the worlds that any further
discussion just becomes pointless.

This is for instance the situation between Lawrence and myself, so every
time he writes about his socialist theories, I just laugh and write some
nonsense back, since I cannot even take him seriously.

D <nospam@example.net> wrote:
>
>
> On Fri, 5 Jul 2024, Scott Dorsey wrote:
>
>> D <nospam@example.net> wrote:
>>> On Fri, 5 Jul 2024, Andreas Eder wrote:
>>>> On Do 04 Jul 2024 at 23:49, Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
>>>>> On Thu, 4 Jul 2024 12:42:22 +0200, D wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> I find it tragic that something like that should be necessary for people
>>>>>> to lift a finger when it comes to protecting markets.
>>>>>
>>>>> Almost as though free markets cannot remain free without regulators to
>>>>> keep them free.
>>>>
>>>> Free markets ten ro become oligopols, if not regulated.
>>>> That is not gard to priive under some mild conditions.
>>>> Go read about it, if zou can understand the math behind that.
>>>
>>> Nope, actually governments tend to create oligopolies due to being such
>>> big actors on the market that work according to politics and not according
>>> to profit motive. FANG profit handsomely by government protection.
>>
>> Both of these statements are true and they are in no way contradictory.
>> --scott
>>
>>
>
> Nope, they are contradictory.

The statements are not contradictory.

> The act of regulation decreases freedom, hence increases
> oligopoly/monopoly. It is of course a spectrum and not binary, but
> the more regulation, the more monopoly and the end station is
> socialism where the government is the monopoly with all the power,
> and the citizens being slaves.

You are correct.

> Only less regulation and more free markets can counter that. Johan
> Norbergs book, The capitalist manifesto also proves conclusively that less
> regulation and more freedom is the only thing that leads to increase
> quality of life.

Yes, and no. You may be overlooking that in a totally free market, the
competitors are also completely free to purchase each other, reducing
the overall competition. If the specific market has large market
specific capitol costs for entry (i.e., must build a $5Bn or more
semiconductor chip fab in order to enter and compete) then, over time,
consolidation (largest competitor purchasing up smaller competitors)
can happen faster than new entrants such that, in the limit, the result
will also be monopoly.

In article <v69fbp$3d8jk$1@dont-email.me>, Rich <rich@example.invalid> wrote:
>Yes, and no. You may be overlooking that in a totally free market, the
>competitors are also completely free to purchase each other, reducing
>the overall competition. If the specific market has large market
>specific capitol costs for entry (i.e., must build a $5Bn or more
>semiconductor chip fab in order to enter and compete) then, over time,
>consolidation (largest competitor purchasing up smaller competitors)
>can happen faster than new entrants such that, in the limit, the result
>will also be monopoly.

It goes beyond this. It is in the clear best interest of any business
to have a monopoly or to at least reduce competition. This being the
case, people in an existing business do the most they can to keep the
market from being free.

It is true that one of the things they do is to lobby for regulation
to control the market, and in this regard it's true that the government
is often involved in reducing competition.

But with hands taken completely off the market, dominant businesses
(especially in a market with a lot of initial capital required, such
as telecoms or chip fab as described above) will do to most they can
to squelch competition and the government can also prevent that to increase
competition. There's nothing that -can- stop it short of regulation.

Copyrights and patents can also reduce competition but they can also
increase competition by promoting innovation. Too short a patent
duration and it does little to promote innovation, too long a patent
duration and it suppresses competition. So once again there's a fine
line to be treaded.

It's not as simple as Adam Smith made it out to be anymore.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

On Fri, 5 Jul 2024 11:40:44 +0200, D wrote:

> On Thu, 4 Jul 2024, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>
>> Where are the righteous right-wingers who can contribute to Free
>> software as well as expound opinions on it? There don’t seem to be any.
>>
> Either they are outspoken and are shunned and net-hated ...

But nobody can stop them distributing their software, can they? It will
still manage to stand or fall on its merits, just like everything in Open
Source.

On Fri, 5 Jul 2024 11:37:56 +0200, D wrote:

> On Thu, 4 Jul 2024, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>
>> On Thu, 4 Jul 2024 12:42:22 +0200, D wrote:
>>
>>> I find it tragic that something like that should be necessary for
>>> people to lift a finger when it comes to protecting markets.
>>
>> Almost as though free markets cannot remain free without regulators to
>> keep them free.
>>
> Of course they can.

No they can’t. Left to themselves, they fall prey to anticompetitive
practices, deceptive advertising, price-fixing, and just plain fraud.
That’s why we need laws, and a Government to enforce them. Freedom
requires order; anarchy is not freedom.

On Fri, 05 Jul 2024 10:56:20 +0200, Andreas Eder wrote:

> Free markets ten ro become oligopols, if not regulated.

Case in point: the introduction of mobile phones. The Europeans decided
that there had to be a common standard, rather than having every carrier
build its own proprietary network. So they came up with a Government-
mandated spec called “GSM”. Yes, it was a complex. bureaucratic spec, but
it was a proper spec, with compliance tests and everything. So you had
proper interoperability. The only thing that tied you to a particular
carrier was that you got your SIM card from them. So switching carriers
was as easy as getting a new SIM card.

Meanwhile, in the USA, the prevailing ideology was “let the market
decide”. So each carrier created its own proprietary network, and its
customers were locked into that network.

And so you had the interesting situation where, in Europe, you could buy
your phone first, then decide which carrier to sign up to, whereas in the
USA, you first chose your carrier, and then you had to buy your phone from
them.

And not only was the European system successful in Europe, it became
popular in most of the rest of the world, too. So you had the situation,
in the early days of Android, where a new model from Samsung or HTC or
whomever would be available across the entire GSM-using world within a
matter of days, while customers in the US had to wait another couple of
weeks, for carrier-specific versions to come out for their particular
carriers.

Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
> On Fri, 05 Jul 2024 10:56:20 +0200, Andreas Eder wrote:
>> Free markets ten ro become oligopols, if not regulated.
>
> Case in point: the introduction of mobile phones. The Europeans decided
> that there had to be a common standard, rather than having every carrier
> build its own proprietary network. So they came up with a Government-
> mandated spec called "GSM". Yes, it was a complex. bureaucratic spec, but
> it was a proper spec, with compliance tests and everything. So you had
> proper interoperability. The only thing that tied you to a particular
> carrier was that you got your SIM card from them. So switching carriers
> was as easy as getting a new SIM card.

Ahh, except that the spec included SIM Locking, with which all that
compatiblity can be made irrelevent for a user with a network-locked
phone:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIM_lock

Worse Telstra in Australia silently clamped down the network
locking so my new Telstra-locked 4G phone won't work with a
Telstra-reseller's SIM (same network, resold by another
company), even though my old 3G Telstra-locked phone does. So I
wasted my money on that (they'll unlock it, but for more than I
paid for the phone).

By the way, an example of BS on Wikipedia:
"In Australia, carriers can choose whether to SIM/Network Lock
handsets or not, however in practice, is rarely performed except in
limited cases. Almost all handsets available on the Australian
market have no such restriction."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIM_lock#Australia

Stores here are _full_ of locked phones and have been for decades.

This checks out for the UK though:
"The UK's mobile networks are to be forbidden from selling phones
locked to their services from December 2021."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIM_lock#United_Kingdom

Mobile networks banned from selling locked phones
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-54692179

So yes governments can mandate universal SIM compatibility, though
it looks like it's not something broadly applicable in Europe, and
it's not just thanks to GSM. GSM clearly served the purposes of the
network operators more than those of users, by allowing them to use
common hardware while still restricting its usage to one company's
network. There's also still different frequency bands which aren't
all supported by phones.

Here in Aus I got an unlocked Nokia instead, and I now know I can't
buy new Telstra-locked mobile devices expecting them to work with
my SIMs anymore. So that's market forces at work. I'm one new
customer in the unlocked phone market, although a pretty grumpy
one who'd have been better off in the UK. I'll get around to
selling the locked phone on Ebay eventually.

--
__ __
#_ < |\| |< _#

On 6 Jul 2024 13:00:23 +1000, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:

> Ahh, except that the spec included SIM Locking, with which all that
> compatiblity can be made irrelevent for a user with a network-locked
> phone:

All the jurisdictions I’m aware of had consumer-protection regulators who
saw to it that unlocking a locked phone was available at a reasonable
charge. Basically, customers got a discount off buying a SIM-locked phone
(compared to an unlocked one), and they had to repay some part of that
discount when it was unlocked, depending on how long before this was done.

Compare this to the US system, where there was no option to unlock the
SIM, because there was no SIM.

On Fri, 5 Jul 2024, Rich wrote:

> D <nospam@example.net> wrote:
>>
>>
>> On Fri, 5 Jul 2024, Scott Dorsey wrote:
>>
>>> D <nospam@example.net> wrote:
>>>> On Fri, 5 Jul 2024, Andreas Eder wrote:
>>>>> On Do 04 Jul 2024 at 23:49, Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
>>>>>> On Thu, 4 Jul 2024 12:42:22 +0200, D wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I find it tragic that something like that should be necessary for people
>>>>>>> to lift a finger when it comes to protecting markets.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Almost as though free markets cannot remain free without regulators to
>>>>>> keep them free.
>>>>>
>>>>> Free markets ten ro become oligopols, if not regulated.
>>>>> That is not gard to priive under some mild conditions.
>>>>> Go read about it, if zou can understand the math behind that.
>>>>
>>>> Nope, actually governments tend to create oligopolies due to being such
>>>> big actors on the market that work according to politics and not according
>>>> to profit motive. FANG profit handsomely by government protection.
>>>
>>> Both of these statements are true and they are in no way contradictory.
>>> --scott
>>>
>>>
>>:wq
>> Nope, they are contradictory.
>
> The statements are not contradictory.

They are. One sentence says that free markets become oligopolies (which is
not true) while the other says that government regulated markets (non-free
markets) become oligopolies.

Either free markets create them, or non-free markets. If both create them,
this discussion is meaningless. Needless to say, I do not believe so, but
if someone does believe it, I see no point in continuing talking.

>> The act of regulation decreases freedom, hence increases
>> oligopoly/monopoly. It is of course a spectrum and not binary, but
>> the more regulation, the more monopoly and the end station is
>> socialism where the government is the monopoly with all the power,
>> and the citizens being slaves.
>
> You are correct.
>
>> Only less regulation and more free markets can counter that. Johan
>> Norbergs book, The capitalist manifesto also proves conclusively that less
>> regulation and more freedom is the only thing that leads to increase
>> quality of life.
>
> Yes, and no. You may be overlooking that in a totally free market, the
> competitors are also completely free to purchase each other, reducing
> the overall competition. If the specific market has large market
> specific capitol costs for entry (i.e., must build a $5Bn or more
> semiconductor chip fab in order to enter and compete) then, over time,
> consolidation (largest competitor purchasing up smaller competitors)
> can happen faster than new entrants such that, in the limit, the result
> will also be monopoly.

If they raise the price, competitors will form, or alternatives will be
developed. Therefore, even though a monopoly might form, prices will not
go to infinity. And the likelihood that a monopoly will form with global
reach, without government contracts or regulation are close to
non-existent.

For a more in depth explanation have a look at this:

https://fee.org/articles/how-the-free-market-handles-monopoly/ .

On Sat, 5 Jul 2024, Scott Dorsey wrote:

> In article <v69fbp$3d8jk$1@dont-email.me>, Rich <rich@example.invalid> wrote:
>> Yes, and no. You may be overlooking that in a totally free market, the
>> competitors are also completely free to purchase each other, reducing
>> the overall competition. If the specific market has large market
>> specific capitol costs for entry (i.e., must build a $5Bn or more
>> semiconductor chip fab in order to enter and compete) then, over time,
>> consolidation (largest competitor purchasing up smaller competitors)
>> can happen faster than new entrants such that, in the limit, the result
>> will also be monopoly.
>
> It goes beyond this. It is in the clear best interest of any business
> to have a monopoly or to at least reduce competition. This being the
> case, people in an existing business do the most they can to keep the
> market from being free.
>
> It is true that one of the things they do is to lobby for regulation
> to control the market, and in this regard it's true that the government
> is often involved in reducing competition.
>
> But with hands taken completely off the market, dominant businesses
> (especially in a market with a lot of initial capital required, such
> as telecoms or chip fab as described above) will do to most they can
> to squelch competition and the government can also prevent that to increase
> competition. There's nothing that -can- stop it short of regulation.
>
> Copyrights and patents can also reduce competition but they can also
> increase competition by promoting innovation. Too short a patent
> duration and it does little to promote innovation, too long a patent
> duration and it suppresses competition. So once again there's a fine
> line to be treaded.
>
> It's not as simple as Adam Smith made it out to be anymore.
> --scott
>

I disagree. I think this article does a pretty good job of showing why
there's no need to be afraid of monopolies:

https://fee.org/articles/how-the-free-market-handles-monopoly/ .

As for patents and copyrights, those are excellent examples of how we have
even bigger and more monopolistic giants today, thanks to the governments
protection, than without it.

Do you think disney would be the woke giant it is without copyright? Or do
you think FAANG companies would be where they are without patents?

On Sat, 6 Jul 2024, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:

> On Fri, 5 Jul 2024 11:40:44 +0200, D wrote:
>
>> On Thu, 4 Jul 2024, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>>
>>> Where are the righteous right-wingers who can contribute to Free
>>> software as well as expound opinions on it? There don’t seem to be any.
>>>
>> Either they are outspoken and are shunned and net-hated ...
>
> But nobody can stop them distributing their software, can they? It will
> still manage to stand or fall on its merits, just like everything in Open
> Source.
>

I am not talking about distributing their software.